Bruno Spengler increased the pressure on Gary Paffett in the DTM title fight by claiming victory at Oschersleben.
From pole position Spengler pulled out a four-second lead over the championship leader during the opening stint of the race. Despite Paffett bringing his HWA Mercedes to within 0.6sec of Spengler's Schnitzer BMW by the finish, he could not get close enough to attempt an overtaking move.
Spengler's third win of the year moved him up to second place in the championship and reduced Paffett's championship lead from 16 points to just 11 with 50 still available from the final two races.
Paffett's HWA teammate Jamie Green briefly grabbed second at the start of the race, but was demoted by the end of the opening lap and ran third for the rest of the race. Behind him, Spengler's team-mate Dirk Werner took the best finish of his career in fourth, while Augusto Farfus benefited from a fine start to finish fifth in the best of the RBM-run BMWs.
Mike Rockenfeller finished sixth after a consistent run in his Phoenix Audi. Robert Wickens (Mucke Mercedes) and Mattias Ekstrom were next up. Ekstrom stalled at the start and ran off the track all by himself at the first corner, but claimed the spot after passing his Abt Audi teammate Timo Scheider at the second round of stops. He then passed the Rosberg Audi of Filipe Albuquerque for eighth with six laps to go when the Portuguese driver ran wide at Turn 6. Albuquerque and Scheider completed the points scorers.
Miguel Molina's race was ruined when Wickens ran into the back of him at the first corner, the Spaniard running wide and sustaining a puncture that forced him into the pits. He finished 15th.
Both Andy Priaulx and Edoardo Mortara went wide at Turn 1 to avoid Molina, the Italian spinning Ralf Schumacher around seconds later as both scrabbled for the same piece of track.
Mortara eventually retired due to front-end damaged sustained in the contact, while Tomczyk was another non-finisher after the champion's RMG BMW started overheating at one-third distance.